Already Forgiven
by vitt1977
Summary: A "same old, same old" plot: pregnancy, narcissism, friendship, and even a medical mystery or two, but with a few post-Season 4 twists. Wilson, reeling from the events of "Wilson's Heart," warns Cameron that she needs to stop trying to save House.
1. Prologue

**ANs and such: House/Cameron, with a strong Cameron/Wilson friendship. Basically a "same old, same old" plot with a few Season 4 twists. Spoilers for "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart" abound. **

**Rated T with occasional M-ish "adult themes." **

Prologue

"One day old infant, born seven weeks premature to a thirty year old woman with a history of light bleeding early in the pregnancy, low BP and occasional extra heartbeats, and a father with a history of opioid abuse. The infant's lungs are hypoplastic and have not developed at all since the end of the second trimester."

Kutner opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but House interrupted before he could get a word out. "Mother was given three courses of glucocorticoids."

"Then it has to be genetic," Foreman said. "Congenital hernia."

House smashed the tip of his cane hard into the carpet. "_What else_?" he demanded.

"The hypoplasia and nonresponse to steroids mean …"

"I know what it _means_," House said, obviously distressed.


	2. Moving On

Chase was looking for a way out.

Three years working as a diagnostics fellow under Dr. Gregory House had taught Allison Cameron two things: first, that a fiercely ethical person doesn't necessarily have to be truthful or likeable, and second, that a person who says he's seeking honest answers is always lying.

"I didn't mean to ask you about House in front of everyone," Chase said when they were home in their apartment in Princeton. "I'd been in surgery all morning, it was a long day …"

"It really is none of your business," she insisted flatly.

"Of course its my –"

"Robert." She leaned towards him and gently buried her long fingers in his hair, pressing herself against his thin frame. "He doesn't have syphilis. He doesn't have _anything_. It was a trap he set up for the new kids. Okay?"

He gnashed his teeth a bit. "Okay."

"Besides," she said, "you bowl with him."

"There are no known STDs that can be transmitted through bowling."

"I mean that you wouldn't bowl with a man who you thought had once had boss-employee sex with your fiancée."

"No, I wouldn't," he conceded. Chase was reliable in that he _always_ conceded.

"We do also have a minor problem that we need to deal with," she said, her voice taking on the matter-of-fact tone she often used to conceal sadness or worry.

Chase raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

She narrated the story as though she were reporting a patient history: three days earlier, she'd realized that her long hours in the windowless ER during the nurses' strike had caused her to lose track of time. The timestamps on the admissions reports said Friday, but she'd thought it was Sunday. Immediately she'd examined her pack of birth control pills and noticed several one- to two-day gaps, meaning that she might have ovulated – and gotten pregnant – at any time that month.

Now her period was two days late and Chase was, for some reason obviously unrelated to the pregnancy scare he'd just learned about, looking for a way out.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"We said we'd consider having children right after we got married, so why not now? If you want to, that is."

She let down her guard. "I think … I might."

"I wouldn't mind having a go at being a better father than mine was," he told her.

Cameron smiled, relieved, wondering if she had perhaps been overly paranoid.

That night, her period came. She told Chase that she wasn't pregnant after all.

Four days later, Chase admitted that for the last month, he'd been seeing his ex-girlfriend from Melbourne. She'd recently moved to Philadelphia on an H-1 visa to start a surgical position at a hospital there. After she looked him up and they'd had a few late-night dinners, he realized that he'd always loved her. He had loved Cameron too, of course, but still, it was over.

He showed up at the apartment the next week to pick up his clothes. "You _are_ no better than your father," she said, knowing that it was what would hurt him most.


	3. After the Fact

Cameron's non-relationship with House began on the night thirteen-year-old Celia came into the emergency room unable to move her arms and legs after the oversized dais chair she was sitting in had collapsed during her bat mitzvah. Celia's X-rays showed no broken bones; she seemed to have nothing more than a bruised coccyx. Cameron decided that she would call her former boss for a consult, even though he would surely find the case uninteresting.

She was half-surprised when he actually showed up.

House lifted Celia's arms, which immediately fell limp at her sides. "You," he told the girl's parents, "need to go out into the waiting room and _wait_."

"She's only thirteen," Celia's mother insisted. "We have every right to be here."

"Your daughter will never dance the _hora_ again unless you leave her alone for two minutes."

"You have absolutely no bedside manner," Mom sneered.

"Then report me to the AMA's bedside manner committee!" House shouted after them as they reluctantly exited the area.

"Okay," House said, flipping through Celia's chart, "now that you think you're an adult – and I'm _not_ referring to your bat mitzvah – I know that you, like all adults, are a liar. You told Dr. Cameron you had your last period nineteen days ago. You lied. If Dr. Cameron does a sonogram and takes a look at your uterus, what is she going to see?"

Celia looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard.

"Celia, would you like to talk to me alone?" Cameron asked, concerned that the pregnancy House was alluding to might be the result of sexual abuse.

"No," she said.

"Are you pregnant?"

"Maybe."

"If someone hurt you, I can help," Cameron assured her.

"It's my boyfriend's," Celia said. "We'd heard about everybody else in the eighth grade getting STDs from oral sex, so we figured if we just had, you know, _regular_ sex with a condom, we'd …"

"You're _lucky_ you only have severe peripheral nerve damage," House told her. "I had a twelve-year-old snot like you in here once with clots so thick they were shredding her blood. Now, this level of nerve damage tells me you're at least six months pregnant. Good job hiding it. You're baby's at risk because you didn't gain enough weight. What were you going to do, send the New Jersey State Police dumpster diving?"

"I'm going to call Dr. Kishore in obstetrics and have you admitted," Cameron told her now-bawling patient.

After she asked a resident to page Sarah Kishore (an old friend from her Mayo Clinic days who would likely get out of bed for a case like Celia's), she followed House out into the hallway. "I asked for a consult, not for you to make a thirteen-year-old girl who can't move cry."

"She had to have known she was pregnant. She was going to dump that baby somewhere."

"You don't know that for sure. She was scared. She didn't –"

"I am surprised that you would still assume good faith, Dr. Cameron."

"Right." She looked up quickly. "How did you know …?"

"Gossip. Listening in on Wilson and Cuddy talking about all of you _kinderlekh_ is better than General Hospital nowadays."

Cameron turned around. As she started to walk away, she stumbled and crashed into a wall.

House caught up to her. "You said you missed the job," he said, referencing a prior conversation. "If you were back on my team, you wouldn't have to work these eighteen-hour shifts and you wouldn't have to worry about that arrhythmia that's obviously sending your blood pressure plummeting."

His eyes betrayed genuine concern.

"I've had it for years, since my husband died." Cameron said. "It's harmless. No long QT, no prolapse, just a drop in BP when I'm under stress."

"You want me to kill him? We're in New Jersey, so I know a couple of guys."

"That's none of your business, and you should know better." But this was House, she remembered. He never knew better.

She breathed deep and her dizziness let up. "Do you want me back?"

House popped a Vicodin. "No."

"No?"

"Last time I said I wanted you back, you sexually harassed me. I need to protect my dignity."

She chuckled slightly, having expected no less from him. "I'm staying where I am."

"Dr. Lawrence in immunology is retiring next year. It'd be a lot easier for you to move up to immunology attending from diagnostics than from the ER."

He had a good point. "But you don't really want me back," she said anyway. "You just want to believe that I missed you. You have to believe the world revolves around you, and I won't play into that."

House moved closer to her, so that his nose almost touched hers. "If I told you I'd wait for you tonight at my place after your shift, what would you do?"

"Are you trying to sexually harass _me_ now?" she challenged.

"No, Dr. Cameron, I'm simply _playing into_ what I know you want because I need you back on my team."


	4. Agreement

**Maybe an M moment or two in this chapter, but nothing overly graphic.**

Her shift ended at midnight, and at 12:21 she rang House's doorbell.

He didn't respond to her knock. She said his name.

When the door opened for her, she found him in pajama pants and an unwashed somewhat-white T-shirt. Immediately, she leaned in and kissed him. He kissed back, just like last time, but he seemed startled.

"You weren't expecting me," she said.

He seemed confused; for all his self-absorbedness, he must have been baffled that someone could want him.

All she could think to do was slip a hand under the rather disgusting T-shirt so she could tease him with fingers across his stomach. "You're gonna need to do a whole lot more than that if you want your job back," he said, the stubble of his beard brushing against her ear.

"You wanted _me_ back." Almost methodically, her hand dipped down past his waistband. "_Do_ you want me back?"

"Yes," he said reflexively.

Granted, sex with Greg House was not nearly as mind-blowing as she'd once imagined it to be (his leg really did restrict his movement quite a bit), but Cameron was pleased that she'd effectively put an end to their flirtatious friendship, and could maybe move on without experiencing flutters in her stomach whenever he passed by or visited her in the lab. But mostly, she was glad to see that she'd made him smile.

Early in the morning, he took out another condom, reached for her again, and this time almost made her scream. He knew exactly how, exactly where, to touch her. Maybe he did want her for more than just his team. But she wasn't about to set herself up to be knocked down again. If Chase could break her heart, imagine the damage that House could do to her.

"Good," was all he said as she caught her breath.

She sat up. "You know I was ready to come back anyway."

"I know." He ran a hand down her back with a gentleness she never would have expected from him. "Allison."

"No comments about my breasts."

"They're bouncier than I thought they would be. Rather impressive for an A-cup."

"You're an ass," she joked.

"So you're really done with the ER?"

She laid down again and turned on her side to face him. "As long as you know, which I'm sure you do, that this can only be a one-time thing. I'm not going to sleep with my boss on a regular basis."

"You have permission to sexually harass your boss once every three years, Dr. Cameron. We'll leave it at that."

And that was the end of their brief encounter as something more than a diagnostician and his former employee.

Cameron went to talk to Cuddy about a transfer the next day. Cuddy agreed to the rehire, admitting that Cameron was indeed far more likely to get the immunology attending position that would become available the next year if she was working in diagnostics rather than in the ER.

Cuddy asked her for three more weeks in the ER while the matter with the nurses was being settled. Cameron nodded and head for the door.

"Dr. Cameron."

Please don't say anything personal, Cameron thought.

"I want you to know that if I could legally fire him over this, I would."

"House?"

"No," Cuddy said, surprised. "Chase."

"I can assure you that Dr. Chase and I don't plan to bring our personal problems into the office."

"Tread lightly," Cuddy advised.

"Chase and I are –"

"I mean with House."


	5. Empathy

At the start of the final week of her three weeks' notice, Cameron found herself stitching up bus accident victims while others were being rushed into an OR they'd never make it out of. House had somehow managed to escape concussed and with a gash on his head, which Cameron carefully (tried to) stitch closed.

He acted as though there had been nothing between them.

There wasn't. There was just one night when they'd needed to take advantage of each other in order to move forward.

Within seventy-two hours, Amber Volakis was dead and House was unconscious following a complex partial seizure.

Cameron found Chase leaning against a wall outside the ICU, propping himself up with his right arm, his forehead pressed to his wrist.

"Robert?" she said softly, not sure whether she should reach out.

He turned slowly to face her. "We don't know yet," he said, answering the question she hadn't asked.

"You shouldn't have agreed to do the procedure. Foreman refused because he said to send electrical impulses through someone's brain while they're still awake is –"

"Stupid," Chase said. "You're both right." His longer-than-usual hair framed his face when he looked down.

"I'm looking for a job in Philadelphia, anyway."

"Foreman mentioned yesterday –"

"It's not that I – they're cutting H-1 visas again next year, so we thought it would be best to –"

"I don't need to know."

"It'll just be a quick City Hall thing." He shook his head abruptly. "Allison, please be careful. What happened to Amber – she died because she was compelled to "rescue" House – that could have so easily been you."

"Let's have dinner after we get out of here tonight," Cameron said. "You, me, and Foreman, I mean."

Chase nodded. "I'll call your cell when I'm out of here."

Walking away, Cameron wished for the "I'm sorry" she was never going to hear.

House was in the ICU, eyes shut, probably sleeping. One of the nurses had told her that he'd regained consciousness but couldn't speak. Cuddy was curled up in a chair next to him. She'd known him before the infarction, before PPTH, even; maybe he needed _her_, maybe she could function better as his friend than Cameron, a thirty-year-old doctor who'd harbored a schoolgirl-like crush on him throughout much of her late twenties, ever could.

So Cameron walked away, and went to see Wilson, who sat on a bench just outside the hospital, waiting for the cab that would take him to Newark Airport, where he'd catch a flight to Chicago and meet Amber's family for the first time at her funeral.

Cameron laid a hand on his shoulder.

"This is neither the time nor the place," he said, his voice cold but teary.

"No," she said, sitting beside him. "Not that. Not him."

"If you're here to defend him, I can't –"

She'd never make it better for House, Chase would never make it better for her, but at least she knew how to save a man from himself after he'd watched a lover die.

"I'm here to warn you that for the next couple of weeks, _everyone_ will try to tell you that 'time heals all wounds' and it'll make you sick to your stomach."

Wilson looked straight at her and broke down just enough so that a tear ran down each cheek. "I went home before, and –" He didn't trail off, but breathed in sharply.

"You don't have to say it."

"Time –" he began.

"Won't matter to you for years," she said.

"Right."

The car service pulled in and Wilson stood slowly, taking the arm that Cameron offered him. "Look," she said, "everybody's going to offer you sympathy. If you need _empathy_, I'm here."

"You were so young," he whispered.

"Does it make a difference?"

"No." He swallowed hard, hugged her quickly, and climbed into the cab.

After a quick, mostly silent but somehow comforting dinner with Foreman and Chase, Cameron's beeper buzzed once. She'd set an alarm to go off at midnight to remind her to take her birth control pill while working late shifts in the ER. She popped out a white pill and realized that she was four days into a new pack.

She would need to stop for a home pregnancy test on the way back to the apartment she'd shared with Chase until just over a month ago.

Probability said that if she was pregnant, it was Chase's: she'd missed several pills during the last month they were together, they hadn't used condoms since that night she showed up at his door to tell him she wanted him to say he liked her no matter what day of the week it was, and her last period had been very light, light enough to suggest she'd been pregnant and just experiencing some light bleeding. She'd had sex with House twice in eight Hours, with condoms, after taking the Pill every night at midnight like clockwork.

But probability also said that Amber should be alive, House dead.


	6. Scare

The plus sign on the white stick the next morning reassured her, because most home pregnancy tests won't show a positive result until well into the third week. If her pregnancy had the result of the night she'd spent with House two-and-a-half weeks earlier, the home test would have probably given her a false negative.

As long as it was Chase's, she'd go through with the pregnancy.

She had a decent-sized apartment for the first time in her life; after Monday she'd be back with the diagnostics team, and she was the best candidate for the immunology attending position that would open up after Dr. Lawrence retired next year. And her ex-fiancé was responsible, if not nearly as loyal as she'd once believed. It was, perhaps coincidentally, a good time for her to have a baby.

But not if it was House's.

If it was House's, she'd terminate the pregnancy and maybe try in-vitro a few years down the line.

She thought of Wilson in Chicago, explaining his presence to Amber's extended family.

House, responsible in a way for Amber's death, could not be allowed to be responsible for a life.

Cuddy found Cameron as she was starting her last ER shift before her return to diagnostics. "Dr. Cameron," she said, "House was asking for you this morning."

If she didn't know better, Cameron would have sworn that the dean of medicine was upset.

"He can say about three words at a time now. You should go see him."

"After my shift, I will."

At two in the afternoon, she went upstairs to see Dr. Sarah Kishore, the ob/gyn she'd befriended while interning at the Mayo Clinic some years earlier. Sarah had been working as an attending at PPTH for a little over a year.

"Check it out," Cameron said, tossing Sarah the white stick.

Sarah cringed.

"I cleaned off the pee," Cameron said, chuckling a bit. "Are you on lunch?"

"As long as nobody goes into labor."

"Good. I'm either three weeks or seven weeks pregnant, and you need to tell me which."

"Hm." Sarah always pretended not to be judgemental but couldn't hide her judgements very well at all. "Which is more likely?"

"Two months ago, I missed eight or nine birth control pills."

Sarah reached into the fridge and handed her friend/colleague a 32-ounce bottle of water. "Start drinking. We'll do a pelvic sonogram before my three o'clock appointment."

"Thanks." Cameron started to sip the water.

"Chug it. We need a full bladder if we're going to get a clear picture." Sarah squeezed her short black hair into a makeshift ponytail. "So once we go into the other room, I'm your doctor. Can I ask you a friend question now?"

"Later," Cameron said.

"Does it make a big difference whether it's three weeks or seven?"

"Later," she repeated.

"You didn't do what I think you did." Cameron continued to swallow water as Sarah continued. "What you've been talking about for three of the last four years?"

Cameron still said nothing.

"If that's the case," Sarah said, "in friend mode, not doctor mode, I completely agree that there's a huge difference between three weeks and seven."

Once Cameron's bladder was full – and practically bouncing up and down in her pelvis – Sarah had her lie down on the table in the next room. Cameron kept her eyes focused on the wall.

"Allison?" she asked. "You want to see?"

"Just tell me."

"I see nothing but an extra-thick uterine wall. You're at three weeks or a little less."

"No," was all Cameron could whisper.

"Go pee," Sarah said. "Then we'll talk."

Cameron felt her heart thump out an extra beat as she emptied her bladder.

"You know, it could go away on it's own," Sarah said, talking now much more as a friend than as a doctor. "I usually won't even see my patients for obstetrics visits until week six."

"I should terminate," Cameron said, thinking again of Amber Volakis, who died because House left his cane in a bar.

"You want me as your doctor?"

"If you think there'd be an ethical problem, no … otherwise, I'd be more comfortable with you."

"Okay," she said. "How about you come in on Friday so you have the rest of the weekend to rest?"

She nodded, now thinking of how ready she'd been to have a baby, if it were Chase's.

"Sarah?" she asked.

"_Anything_ you need."

"Can we wait until a week from this Tuesday? I know it's almost two weeks off, but I'd still be under six weeks, so …"

"It's ok. I'll put you down for next Tuesday." She scribbled a few words on her prescription pad, signed her name, and passed a page to Cameron. "You'll take two of these Monday night to dilate your cervix."

She wanted to wait because Wilson would be back a week from Monday. She needed him to remind her why having House's baby would be the worst possible decision she could ever make.


	7. Undeserved Luck

Cameron tentatively approached House's bedside.

He opened one eye and stared – perhaps glared – at her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, imagining he was hurt because she hadn't come to see him in the eight days since his seizure.

"A few words at a time," he answered.

"What's the prognosis?"

"Full recovery." Then, after a long pause, "Not fair."

Cameron moved in closer, so that her face hovered over his. She wanted to tell him but knew that there was no way she could, mostly because he was going to recover. He'd turn back into the same man, the same House, because as he himself had taught her, people don't change.

"What?" she asked when she saw a suspicious look on his face.

"Spearmint." He was referring to her breath. "Like … spearmint leaf wrapped around vomit?"

Analogical thinking. He really was going to make a full recovery.

Earlier that day, full-on morning sickness had hit Cameron for the first time. She'd been sick to her stomach for a few days because of hormones and nerves (if "nerves" could be considered a valid medical condition), but that morning, three days before Wilson was scheduled to return to work, Cameron had found herself throwing up in the fourth-floor women's restroom.

"House, I … hello, Dr. Cameron." Cuddy, House's only regular visitor, stood in the doorway behind them.

"I'm on my way out," Cameron said.

"No," House said forcefully.

"I have clinic duty in fifteen minutes."

"Liar."

Cuddy stepped inside and stood next to Cameron. "She does, House."

"What caused." He cleared his throat. "What causes. Thirty-year-old doctor. Vomiting and halitosis."

Cuddy looked at Cameron, startled, perhaps wondering why House would be so concerned about Cameron's nausea.

"Bulimia," Cuddy suggested, obviously not believing her own differential for a second.

"Wrong personality disorder." He articulated each word carefully.

"It'll be okay," Cameron told House, hoping that was all he needed.

He looked up at Cameron with worried eyes. House's eyes always betrayed so much more than he ever wanted to reveal.

Ten minutes later, Cuddy caught up with Cameron downstairs in the clinic. "I don't mean to pry, Dr. Cameron," she said, "but House wouldn't care less if you were bulimic."

"Dr. Cuddy, I have to ask you to please respect personal boundaries," Cameron said emotionlessly.

"I'm worried he'll swallow a whole bottle of Vicodin once he's had the chance to really think about what happened with Wilson."

House was undeservedly lucky, Cameron thought, to have a friend like Lisa Cuddy. She remained protective of him even after he destroyed the man he had considered his closest friend.

But, Cameron had realized – at least a year earlier – that defending and protecting House wasn't worth the trouble. even if he was, as few others understood, a fiercely ethical doctor and somehow, a man who meant well.

Admittedly (once), she loved him. She loved him but knew he was too much of a selfish ass to ever endeavor to love her back.


	8. Wilson's Return

Cameron shone a light into her clinic patient's yellow eyes. Mrs. Kleyner's pupils were the same size; though she was having problems with muscular coordination, this was clearly not a stroke. The jaundice suggested possible liver failure.

"Last night I woke up at two in the morning and couldn't see," the middle-aged woman sitting on the exam table said. "And now I can see just fine. I don't understand what happened."

A possible diagnosis dawned on Cameron almost immediately.

"Mrs. Kleyner, do you take those over-the-counter pills that are supposed to prevent colds?"

"Yes," she said. "Everyone at work has been sneezing and coughing, and I don't want to come down with anything before my niece's wedding."

"How many times a day do you take them?"

"Three. I dissolve one in a glass of water three times a day."

"For how long?"

"The last ten days or so."

"And you've been taking a regular multivitamin?"

"Every morning."

Cameron sighed, slightly exasperated by yet another patient who thought she could save herself with magic vitamins. "I have to admit you," she said. "You've got hypervitaminosis A … vitamin A poisoning."

"But the cold medicine, it's all-natural," the patient said. "Just vitamins and herbs."

"And it was invented by a teacher, someone who _undoubtedly_ understands the common cold inside and out, much better than, say, a doctor." Cameron immediately chided herself for the House-like response. Maybe her hormones were getting the better of her. "I'm sorry," she added. "Don't worry, you won't have any permanent liver damage. I'll come see you tomorrow morning and explain the medical reasons why all you need to take every morning is your calcium and Vitamin D and why vitamins can't fight colds."

After she made arrangements for Mrs. Kleyner and logged her clinic hours for the day, Cameron went upstairs to Wilson's office.

The oncologist sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, sport coat hanging on the wall. He'd lost five pounds or so in the last ten days. She could see it in his face.

When he smiled at her – lips around his teeth, eyes blinking furiously – all the panic she'd been experiencing melted away for just a minute.

"How are you doing?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"As well as can be expected." He stood and hugged her warmly. "You were right. So much 'sympathy' out there it could make a person sick."

"You have a minute?" she asked.

"I have half an hour."

"Can I ask you about House?"

Wilson shrugged and propped himself up against the wall. "Look, Allison, I intellectually _know_ the bus accident wasn't his fault, but I can't think about this. I can't. I can't."

She touched his shoulder lightly and swept her hand down to his elbow. "It'll be a lot easier on you if you don't imagine that her death was 'meant to be' or part of a 'plan.' There's less anger that way."

"You're more like House in that respect," he said. "You assume that if there was a deity, life would be fair. Life isn't fair, so …"

"But life in the last couple of weeks has been –"

"Radically unfair." Wilson looked up at the ceiling and breathed out through rounded lips. "When I get my head together, we'll talk about House, I promise."

"I need to talk about him now," she said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Wilson's desk. "You are the only person who can help me."

He paused to consider Cameron's plea and then swallowed hard, repeatedly blinking again. "Oh, _God_."

"I only intended for it to be a one-night thing. I was a little off after Chase left, and –"

"And he didn't intend for it to be just one night?" Wilson asked.

"No," she said, looking down at the floor. "Tomorrow morning I have an appointment in obstetrics." Her hands shaking, she unzipped her purse and took out a prescription bottle. "I am supposed to take these tonight, so I have to make a definitive decision within the next couple of hours."

Wilson moved towards Cameron and braced himself against his desk. A mix of anger and concern was written on his face. "Make sure that after the procedure they run a complete blood panel and test for every STD under the sun. He only has sex with hookers." He wrinkled his forehead. "Not that –"

"I know." She laughed slightly. "We used a condom."

"Which obviously didn't serve its purpose. You could have some kind of virus that we haven't seen since the sixteenth century."

"I'll get tested tomorrow, then." One corner of her mouth turned up. "I don't think Sarah's able to test for pirate diseases from the 1540's, though."

"Allison?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you having second thoughts? This is House." Wilson tapped his fingers on the desk. "Ah. You're having second thoughts _because_ this is House."

"No. At first I thought it was Chase's, and I was going to go through with the pregnancy because it made sense. But once Sarah confirmed I was three weeks along …"

"Do _not_ harbor illusions about the man."

"I'm not 'in love' with House."

"If you want to have a child on your own, there are other options. Do _not_ have his child just because you believe somewhere in the back of your mind that he'll change as soon as the baby's born."

"I know he won't."

"House doesn't mean to destroy people who are close to him." Here Wilson started to choke on his own words a bit. "He is just very bad at being human, and he _cannot_ be trusted with a child's life. I've known him longer than you have, and I know for sure that he had a host of personality problems before the infarction. He will not change."

"Are you saying this because of me, or because of Amber?"

"Both," Wilson answered honestly. "He's alive; she's dead. That should be all you need to make your decision." When she didn't respond, he added, "You're too young to get dragged into his sphere."

"What if I made a decision that had nothing to do with House?"

"I wouldn't believe you," he said.

"What if I'm afraid that if I don't have a baby now – a year before my promotion – I'll be reduced to having to choose between a baby and a career?"

"You want to go through with it," he said flatly.

"Yes."

He stood up again and paced around the office furiously. "You have to promise me something," he said, stopping at the bookshelf. "If you need anything – whether it's money, someone to help you carry groceries when you're in your second and third trimesters, _anything_ – you will come to me. Promise me you won't go to him at all."

"Would it be unethical," she asked, standing slowly, "if no matter how many times he asks, I never confirm that he's the father?"

"Yes. But having known him for over a decade, I can assure you that unethical is the best way to go."


	9. Time

House was back at work only six weeks after the complex partial seizure that should have left him permanently aphasic, or at least dead.

On his first day back, he noticed that Cameron had poorly covered up an acne breakout on her chin and that her breath still smelled like spearmint-covered vomit. Acne and morning sickness meant that she was in her first trimester; her body was still adjusting to the hormone spike.

His loss for words that day had nothing to do with his recent brain injury.

At the end of that week, House was in the boardroom with his team, minus Cameron, running a differential on a man suffering from hives and uncontrolled hiccupping. "The hives tell us it has to be allergy," Thirteen said.

"Then why aren't the steroids working?" Taub asked.

"We should give it time," was the only suggestion she could offer.

"Sure, Thirteen, _time_," House said. "Call me on your fiftieth birthday – if either of us is still around – you tell me then what _time_ is all about."

"That's –" Taub began.

"If you say 'uncalled for,' you're fired for unoriginality."

"So," Thirteen said, "what kind of allergy doesn't respond to corticosteroids?"

"Would be nice if we had an immunologist around," House muttered. "I'll go find one, but I want more ideas when I come back."

The doctors glanced at each other, most likely confused that House hadn't sent someone else to find Cameron.

House pushed open the door to the fourth-floor women's bathroom with the tip of his cane. "Oh, Dr. Cameron …"

Immediately he noticed that Cameron was seated on the floor of one of the stalls. "Open up." He knocked on the stall's door. "Let me help you."

"No," he heard her say.

"Are you bleeding?"

She reached up and unlatched the lock. Her gray trousers were unbuttoned at the top but still hugged her waist; her behind was pressed to the floor and her feet rested against the stall's opposite wall. Her cell phone was between her left ear and shoulder.

"House, you shouldn't be in here."

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Does it look like it matters now?" Her cheeks were wet.

He wanted to tell her that it mattered.

"Clear out." Those were the first words that Wilson had spoken to him in almost two months. Cameron had called _him_ on her cell.

An orderly followed Wilson with a wheelchair. Wilson knelt beside Cameron, a move that House's leg would not permit him to make.

"You can't get up, or you're afraid to?" Wilson said gently.

"I'm cramping. It's cervical, I can feel it. There's blood. I'm miscarrying."

"Okay, come on." He helped her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist as she settled into the chair.

"Sarah wasn't supposed to be in today," Cameron told him. "I had to page her at home."

"Just try to breathe, slowly." Wilson took both of Cameron's hands in one of his and held on as the orderly wheeled her to the elevator.

From the far end of the hall, House stared at his former friend and the mother of his child, wondering if it was better this way.


	10. Visit

Cameron had been lucky. That day in the bathroom, she'd had cervical contractions and bleeding but didn't miscarry. Sarah Kishore ordered a daily dose of progesterone and three weeks' bedrest to ensure that the fetus made it to the end of the first trimester.

Immediately after being discharged from obstetrics, Cameron approached Cuddy about taking three weeks' sick leave.

"I'll give you your three weeks," Cuddy said, "if you let me speak my mind for a second."

Cameron gritted her teeth; her jaw shifted a bit. "Go on."

"What you're doing – what you and Wilson are doing – _isn't fair_."

"Thank you for the sick leave, Dr. Cuddy."

For the next three weeks, Wilson would stop by every other day to make her two days' worth of dinner so that she wouldn't have to spend too much time on her feet. Some nights, he'd eat with her and they'd talk unmorbidly about dead lovers. House was wrong, she told Wilson one evening: he thought she'd married a dying man because she felt an overwhelming need to take care of sick people, but in actuality, she felt an overwhelming need to take care of sick people because she'd married a dying man.

On weekends, her parents drove in from Central Pennsylvania to be with her. She finally admitted to them that House, not Chase, was the father. They'd suspected that it wasn't Chase, since Chase was already living in Philadelphia with his new wife, whose green card was on the way.

Then, three days before the end of her term of bedrest, she opened the door for House, the one person who hadn't come to visit her in her apartment before today.

"I wish I knew how to short circuit an elevator," she said.

"Some of us cripples can climb stairs." House let himself in and pointed his cane at her. "Bedrest. Why aren't you in bed?"

"You know bedrest doesn't mean –"

"Off your feet."

"Don't order me around," she snapped, but sat on the sofa and curled her feet in under her body nevertheless.

"Because I have no right to order you around?" His blue eyes flared for a moment, but his look quickly softened – as much as House could "soften" – when he sat beside her.

Tentatively, he reached out and rubbed her lower back. "There's a lot of pressure on your kidneys?"

"Hm. Maybe."

"With your low BP, you –"

"Shut up, House."

He continued to rub her back and she didn't protest, until she felt the need to ask him why he was there.

"Consult," he answered.

"Foreman called yesterday about Mr. Brennan. I still think it's an immunological response to something that's not an allergy. You can't have taken on another patient since then. Two patients at a time is way too much of a workload for you."

"We're running a postmortem diagnosis on a forty-eight year-old man who's been dead for months but for some reason still shows up at work every day."

She turned around and lightly touched his arm. He offered her a half-hearted semi-smile.

"Allison?"

"What?"

"You're an idiot." She knew him well enough not to be insulted. "You'll have a hundred chances to have a baby in the next ten years, but you're choosing to have mine."

"It was the right time," was all she said.

He sucked on his lower lip, staring intently at her. "It's … it's mine, isn't it?"

Before she could figure out how (or whether) to answer him, the doorbell buzzed. Cameron sauntered over to the intercom, her long blue track pants sweeping the floor.

Wilson was downstairs. He'd been to see her the day before; she wasn't expecting him today.

House went for the door.

"He's already downstairs, and there's only one way out," Cameron said. "If you have to avoid him, hide in the closet."

"You're still an idiot. You won't –"

Before he could finish that thought, he found himself face-to-face with Wilson.

Wilson set a bag of groceries on the counter. "What are you doing on your feet," he asked Cameron, eyeing House suspiciously.

"I had to answer the intercom," she said.

"I'll see you back at the factory next week," House mumbled, heading for the door. "Thanks for the consult."


	11. Unafraid

Wilson put away the groceries he'd bought for Cameron and asked her about House's visit. Ten minutes later, he made sure she was comfortable and left the apartment.

House was outside.

He stood with both hands on his cane, pressing all his weight into the handle. In the setting August sun, he squinted, looking straight ahead.

He had waited for Wilson to come downstairs.

"Are you in love with her?" House asked, affectlessly.

"How can you say that?"

House continued to stare.

"We talk," Wilson said. "She knows that getting the chance to say goodbye isn't all it's cracked up to be. And she needs –"

House sighed deeply. "Beat the hell out of me," he said. " Break my bad leg. Break my good leg so I can't walk at all. Break my skull, but don't use Cameron to punish me."

"You think I'm doing this to _punish you_." Wilson stood in front of House, lips parted, eyes on fire. "You are so _fucking_ narcissistic that you think I'm helping Allison in order to punish you."

He turned and marched towards his car.

"Jimmy," House called after him.

Wilson stopped, still facing the street.

"I'm sorry," House said. "I'm so sorry."

"That will never be enough."

"_I_ should be dead, not Amber."

"Good for you," Wilson sneered.

"I told her that if I could choose between me and her, I would have chosen her."

"You … you _told_ her? House, you need another CAT scan."

"It was an hallucination, after the seizure. Maybe during, I don't know.

Amber and I were on a bus, she was all in white, there were bright lights everywhere, and I told her it wasn't right that a Vicodin-popping selfish cripple should live when a promising young doctor should die. I didn't want to live. She said to me, 'you can't always get what you want,' and walked away."

Wilson's brown eyes fixed on House's expression. "You're not making this up," he said.

"If I'd made it up, there would have been more sex, drugs, and rock n'roll, not white lights and barefoot dying doctors."

Wilson's chest heaved up and down as he stared cross-eyed at the ground and tried to catch his breath. "Did she look … was she afraid?"

"My brain was literally fried."

"I'm just asking."

"No one was 'crossing over'."

"So how did she look in your completely brain-based hallucination?"

"Collected," House said. "The Amber my brain invented was not afraid."

Wilson pressed a hand to the roof of his car and leaned forward. "She shouldn't have been taking amantadine for a type A flu," he said. "It probably wouldn't have done anything for her, anyway."

"She thought she was doing you a favor, picking me up."

"Every part of Amber's death was a horrible freak accident and if it turns out there's a God, I'll break _his_ legs."

House gripped Wilson's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said again, at a loss for any other words.

"I've already forgiven you."

"You're lying."

"I – I know," he said. "But I'm going to forgive you eventually. You need to agree not to screw up Allison's life or her child's, though. And you know the only way you can keep from screwing up someone's life is to stay away. You do that, and I promise not to hold Amber's freak accident against you for the rest of your life."


	12. Mystery

"What the –" Cameron jumped as House pressed his stethoscope to her now-apparent baby bump when they were alone in the boardroom one afternoon.

"You've got terrible gas, Dr. Cameron," he said. "I'd avoid open flames if I were you."

"You're so sophomoric. And that could be the baby kicking."

"Cool." He slid the stethoscope up to the left side of her chest. "Wait for it … wait for it … THUNK!"

"Please don't narrate my heartbeats."

Foreman burst in with a patient file but paused for a moment to survey the scene. If he'd been worried about _becoming_ House, Cameron had it much worse.

"We have two six-week-old infants, next door neighbors, instant deaths within a day of each other. Cuddy wants you on this."

"SIDS and coincidence," House offered.

"No respiratory failure."

"Pulmonary hemorrhage?" Cameron suggested. "Those kids in Ohio during the floods in the early 90s –"

"Were all from lower-middle-class families who couldn't afford to clean the mold out of their water-logged basements." Foreman seated himself at the head of the table. "And besides, there's no pulmonary hemorrhage, edema, scarring, anything."

"Okay, then," House said, "take Kutner with you and –"

"I answer to Cuddy, not you," Foreman reminded him.

"Foreman, go shove your thumb up Cuddy's ass and send Kutner and Thirteen to look for environmental causes. Cameron, you start thinking immunological."

"There's only so much you can do with a dead patient," she said.

"Tell that to the janitor who got fired last month."

Cameron rolled her eyes but cracked a smile.

At four o'clock, after she'd collected tissue samples from the infants, she went downstairs for the ultrasound that Sarah Kishore had ordered.

"No contractions?" Sarah asked, running the probe over Cameron's abdomen and pelvis.

"No, just mild muscle pain in my lower back, and constant peeing. Speaking of which, my bladder is _really_ full right now."

"We need your bladder full to see the uterus clearly."

"Really full, Sarah."

"I'll still eat lunch with you if you accidentally pee on my exam table." Her eyes were fixed on the screen. "You want to know the sex?"

"Sure. You know already?"

"It always depends on the fetus' position," Sarah said. "Right now, I clearly see labia."

"A girl … can I pee now?"

After emptying her bladder, Cameron took a seat in Sarah's office. "You're okay otherwise?" Sarah asked. "With the non-medical aspects of your pregnancy?"

"Wilson's been a huge help."

"Good. And if there's anything else …"

"Can I pick your brain with a diagnostics question?"

"That's not what I meant, but, sure."

"Do you know of any prenatal factors that could lead to the sudden death of two unrelated six-week-olds who live next door to each other?"

"There are environmental factors – mold, bacteria, animal diseases – that could have come into play, but the parents and neonatologists would have noticed symptoms immediately after birth. If it weren't so coincidental, I'd say you have two babies with similar genetic diseases."

"Hm. Thanks … I'll have to look into that."

"Take care of yourself, Allison. Seriously."

Cameron nodded and left Sarah's office to return to the lab. On her way there, she met Cuddy in the hallway. Cuddy had been looking for her.

"Dr. Cameron," she said, "you're needed in pediatrics. There's a third baby."


	13. Loss

Cuddy had sought out Cameron because Foreman was consulting with a neurologist and House had the rest of the team running around like chickens without heads.

The infant in pediatrics was three weeks old and had a small pustular rash on her stomach. Her heart rate was slow and indeed, her parents lived only a quarter-mile away from the parents of the two dead infants.

Cameron carefully picked up the baby in order to more closely examine the rash. "We need to get the CDC involved," Cuddy said.

"No, we don't." House appeared behind her. "The CDC will set off an unnecessary panic. I won't."

"You're Dr. House?" the baby's mother asked.

House didn't respond. He moved in closer towards Cameron and the baby. "There are no signs of airborne illness here. The CDC will come in with spacesuits anyway and send everyone running."

"Well, sometimes it's better to –" Cuddy's eyes grew wide. "Dr. Cameron, the baby just stopped breathing. Her heart rate's falling."

By the time Cameron moved to hand the baby to a nurse so that they could start CPR (less than a second later), it was already too late. One of the nurses called a code and Cuddy shuttled the parents into the hallway, but they were unable to resuscitate.

Cameron stood frozen, arms open as though there were still a baby in them.

A nurse had to assure Cameron that she hadn't reacted too slowly.

"Did any of you see a dip in the respiratory rate?" House asked.

"N-no," Cameron stammered, and the nurses agreed. "Time of death, 6:12 P.M."

House wrinkled his forehead. "What causes instant respiratory arrest?"

"I don't know." Her voice was still shaking.

"If this isn't in the lungs, it's got to be the brain," House said. "There's no other reason why the respiratory system would just shut off like that."

"Get blood samples and tissue while you can," Cameron told the nurses. "I'll spend tonight in the lab."


	14. Still No Answers

By eleven o'clock, she'd ruled out five types of parasites and was testing for a sixth and final one. She'd test for additional immune and genetic disorders closer to sunrise.

Behind her, she heard footsteps and the sound of a cane rhythmically hitting the floor. A hand found its way to her shoulder.

She hung her head. "You have to let me work," she said. "What did you come up with differential-wise?"

"Everything on the list is genetic, which doesn't make sense. You can't have three unrelated kids in the same neighborhood die of the same genetic neurological disorder."

"Just because it's improbable doesn't make it impossible," Cameron said. "Wait … what happened the last time we saw a genetic 'coincidence'? The husband and wife who turned out to be half-siblings?"

"You're saying somebody on that block has a very big … secret?"

"I'll have DNA tests run on the hair and skin samples."

"Test them all. Have Taub or Thirteen call every parent in a ten-block radius. Tomorrow you'll stick needles in every kid under the age of twelve."

"Good." Cameron turned back to her work.

"You okay?" From him, it was a rare question.

"Sure."

He sat on a stool and lifted his right leg slowly as he stared intently at the supposed mother of his child. "You've been crying, though. The lab's where you go to cry."

"I don't understand why you think of me as a weepy and weak-willed type."

"Because you're a woman," House joked, tilting his head as he emphasized the last word.

"Leave me alone."

"Or you're a talented doctor who's been in this game for six years but is still freaked out by death, which is definitely worse than just being a woman. You have to stop thinking about your personal history with death every time you see it."

"I was thinking of my baby," she said. Suddenly, she grabbed one of House's hands and pressed it to her abdomen.

He seemed alarmed by her move. "It's not 'miraculous,' you know," he said, looking sideways into her eyes.

"I know. It's gestation."

"Is it mine?" he asked her for the first time in six weeks.

"Are you interested because it could be your child or because I won't tell you if it's yours?"

"What?"

"You don't care about anything. You're only ever _interested_, not _invested_."

"Wilson-isms," he noted.

"This isn't about Wilson."

"Is it mine?"

"Can't answer that," she said.

"Because of Wilson?"

"No, me. House. Me."


	15. Solution

"I _know_ I'm getting a needle." Five-year-old Maggie puffed out her cheeks and glared smugly at her parents. "I _know_ you're lying."

"Perceptive girl," Cameron said with a smile. She, Taub, and Kutner had spent much of the afternoon taking blood samples from fifty-two of the children in the neighborhood where three unrelated infants had died of sudden respiratory failure. (House had told Cameron she was to make sure that Kutner didn't accidentally set a kid on fire.) "Well, Maggie," she continued, eyeing the veins in the girl's left arm, "guess what? _Everybody_ lies."

As she applied a cotton ball and Dora the Explorer Band-Aid to Maggie's arm (pediatrics had lent them three boxes), Cameron noticed a sore on the girl's upper lip. She leaned in closer and saw that it wasn't an average canker sore.

"Has Maggie had the chickenpox vaccine?" Cameron asked.

"No, I had _chickenpox_," Maggie said. "When I was only three."

"She caught it from some of the other children on the block," Mr. Colaccio explained.

"Look," Cameron said trying not to wring her hands or clench her jaw, "I have to follow protocol and let social services know" – here she lowered her voice so that the patient examining her Band-Aid couldn't hear – "Maggie has what I believe is a herpes simplex breakout on her upper lip."

Mrs. Colaccio covered her face with her hand. "Do you think she's being … molested? We never let her out of our sight, ever."

"You'll need to consent to an exam not in your presence. I can stay with her if you'd like."

"There's nothing funny going on, I swear to God."

Mr. Colaccio glanced at his wife, then at Cameron. "Dr. Cameron," he said, "I think I may know how this happened."

"Okay …?"

"Can herpes sores be transmitted from drinking glasses, spoons, or forks?"

"Rarely," Cameron said, "but the risk would be increased with regular exposure. Is one of you being treated for herpes?"

"We've both been treated for several STDs," he admitted.

"Yes. Things happen."

"I have to order a complete exam for Maggie anyway. Excuse me for a minute."

She had a nurse wait with the family while she called pediatrics and told them to contact child protective services immediately.

After Maggie and her mother were taken downstairs, Cameron stopped Mr. Colaccio in the waiting room. "I have a question for you that will sound like I'm prying where I shouldn't be," she said, "but it's very medically relevant in terms of what's going on in your neighborhood right now. How do two people married for more than five years contract multiple STDs?"

"You're a doctor. You should know the answer to that."

"If _everyone_ in that neighborhood has the same STDs, I know what happened and we can save some lives. You have to tell me."

He hung his head. "We never thought it would do any harm. There was a sort of open marriage arrangement between all the couples on the block. The idea was supposed to be that if we all had sex with each other, no one would get hurt. But then Miranda and I got sick, and we realized that somebody must have brought in STDs from the outside. We got out. We should get some credit for that."

"Wash your dishes better," Cameron said, and immediately went to find House.


	16. No One Meant For It To Happen

"They're all having sex with each other."

House feigned a double take. "Who are 'they' and how much will it cost me to join in?"

"The parents. They had a 'trading spouses' scheme. Turns out somebody brought a host of STDs into the mix. The mothers of the dead infants were probably breastfeeding, House."

"Idiots," he muttered, grabbing his cane and starting for the door.

Cameron followed him. "Obviously, these month-old babies couldn't handle the infections as well as their parents could."

House nodded slowly as he headed towards the elevator. "Gonorrhea, syphilis … it all probably went right to their brains. Once the brain stops telling you to breathe, that's it."

"Right."

He stopped so that he could face her. "There was nothing that anybody could have done yesterday. You know that."

More than twenty families from the neighborhood were sitting in the pediatrics waiting room; after Kutner found out about the Colaccios, he'd sent every child down to pediatrics for complete examinations. "My colleague Dr. Cameron is calling child protective services on all of you," House told them.

One man opened his mouth to say something. "Shut up," House said. "No, they can't take your kids away because you're all screwing each other, even though you were all stupid enough not to use protection."

"Can we get Dr. Cuddy back in here?" one of the mothers asked.

"No-we-can't-get-Dr.-Cuddy-back-in-here."

Cameron took a breath. "Raise your hand if you're breastfeeding," she said, knowing they were more likely to respond to her than to House.

More than half of the mothers raised their hands. "And how many of you knew that you had one or more STDs?"

They were much slower to respond to this question, but eventually, three-fourths of the breastfeeders kept their hands raised.

House turned to a pediatrician observing the scene. "We have eight infants who need to be admitted _now_."

After the waiting room started to clear out, the mother who had asked for Cuddy approached Cameron. "Dr. Cameron," she said, "you've got to understand, we're all working people."

"Are you breastfeeding?"

"No, my son's five years old. I breastfed him as a baby, though, and we figured that no one would suspect that anything was _wrong_ …"

"All of you knowingly risked transmitting infections to your kids."

"We didn't know … we didn't think they were _deadly_. I mean, like I said, we're all working people, and we wanted this lifestyle but we also had to protect ourselves from what people were going to say. I am sure that no one meant for what happened to those babies to happen, but …"

"Child protective services will take over from here," was all Cameron said.


	17. Interest

After House left for the day, Cameron went to see Wilson in his office. He had been working long hours lately, trying to get some of his patients into a clinical trial up in Boston.

Cameron laid a printout from her most recent sonogram on his desk.

He grinned from ear to ear. It was the first sign of joy she'd seen on his face in months.

"It's a girl," she told him.

"Congratulations." Still smiling, he examined the picture more closely. "Hmm, and I don't see facial hair or a cane, which I thought for sure we'd see. He started to laugh. "I'm sorry," he said, but he continued laughing.

"Either House dosed you with something again or you just _really_ needed a reason to laugh. I know what that's like." She joined him in his laughter, adding, "I'm sure if she had a cane in there I would have felt it."

"You – you didn't say anything to him, did you?"

"I thought about it, but, no."

"Maybe," he said, turning the picture sideways, "you should."

"What?"

"Not that _I_ think you should. Cuddy does, and you know Cuddy."

"This isn't any of Cuddy's business."

"Like I said, you know Cuddy. She'll fight for House no matter what."

"I've wondered for a long time what her stake is in all of this," Cameron said. "Do you know that when I asked her for sick leave she told me that what you and I were doing to him was unfair? We're not doing anything to him. I'm doing something for my baby."

"Never tell anyone I told you," Wilson said, "but twenty years ago, Cuddy was pretty much you."

"She was –"

"No, no, not pregnant. Just a pre-med student at Michigan caught up in the piece of shit wrapped in an enigma that is Gregory House."

"He's not a piece of shit," Cameron said. "He just … he is incapable of putting others first. He can love, I think …"

"He can. I've seen it, with Stacy, years ago."

"But he'll always put his own interests first, and I saw today what kind of harm that can do to a child."

"Right, Kutner told me about the …"

"The parents love their children. They're sad for them, but they could have so easily prevented what happened. All they had to do was imagine the effects of their actions on the kids, and they couldn't do that _at all_."

"So you've made your decision," Wilson said, handing the photo back to Cameron.

"Yes." She bit her lower lip. "Would ... would you be offended right now if I asked you if I could name the baby Amber?"

Wilson raised his eyebrows, then breathed out through pursed lips. "Would that be meant as a tribute to Amber or an affront to House?"

"Amber was so young, and she deserves … I want to name her Amber in honor of a really smart, driven doctor who died young, and I want you to be her godfather."

"Or you just want to ensure that House is afraid to go near her."

"No. I promise I would never insult you like that."

The next night, Cameron showed up at House's apartment. She didn't go inside. When he opened the door, she handed him the picture from the sonogram.

His eyes widened and retracted as he stared at the picture.

"You had a part in making her," Cameron finally admitted.

"But you don't want me to be her father," he guessed.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I get you. I'll lose interest and walk away eventually. You've got people who won't do that."

"Thank you."

"Just remember, your little Australian wombat-boy lost interest and walked away, too." With that, he closed the door on her.


	18. Alarm

Christmas was two weeks away and PPTH was decorated festively, but Cameron didn't notice much as she went through the motions at the clinic. House rarely spoke to her now, even during differentials. What really concerned her, though, was how readily he'd given up his claim to his child that night she'd told him that she didn't want him to be the baby's father; though he was probably right when he said _anybody_ could lose interest, she'd half-expected him to fight harder for a place in his child's life.

"You're too naïve, still," Wilson told her one afternoon in a corner of the clinic's waiting room.

Wordlessly, Cameron took a candy cane out of a mug on the reception desk and snapped it in half.

"He feels betrayed," Wilson continued.

"Now you sound like you're defending him."

"I'm not saying he _was_ betrayed. I'm saying he _feels_ betrayed by you and me and doesn't understand the difference."

"You obviously –" Cameron sensed a heart palpitation and felt the familiar dizziness that usually accompanied a drop in her blood pressure. "You obviously are starting to care about his well-being again."

"I am ... worried. About all of us."

"You don't think I was wrong, do you?"

"Allison, your pupils are dilated." There was alarm in his voice. "Allison?" Now he sounded like he was buried deep in a commuter rail tunnel. Her feet, she imagined, were lifted off the ground. The floor rose up under her and the waiting room went black.

When she regained consciousness only seconds later, Wilson was cradling her head to prevent her from falling further backwards. For the second time during her pregnancy, he helped her into a wheelchair.

Upstairs in obstetrics, Sarah Kishore and a consulting cardiologist determined that Cameron's loss of consciousness was simply the result of a stress-related drop in blood pressure. "Whenever your heart adds an extra beat," the cardiologist explained, "your heart tries to compensate with the next beat, and your BP drops."

She'd known that for nine years, ever since she'd passed out in her mother-in-law's living room with a BP of 85/50, the day after her husband's funeral.

But after a sonogram, Sarah returned looking rather somber. "You're lucky you passed out today," she told Cameron.

"Why?"

She sat at the edge of the table and held her friend's hand. "You are not allowed to panic."

"That's really not helpful. I would never tell a patient not to panic."

"Your baby's lungs are hypoplastic. I need to admit you and administer a course of glucorticoids. The lungs haven't grown at all since your last sonogram at week 26, and we need to jumpstart their growth."

"Sarah," she said, sitting up, "I'm panicking."


	19. Amber's Argument

That evening, Sarah administered a course of glucocorticoids to the fetus that Cameron was carrying. Four days later, a sonogram revealed no change. Sarah then administered a second course. Three days later, the fetus' lungs still looked exactly the same.

"Why?" Cameron asked.

"I don't know," Sarah said. "But I've discussed this with our entire obstetrics department and we all agree that right now, your baby's best chance of survival is outside the womb."

"She'll be born with severe respiratory distress." Cameron sat up in her hospital bed, alarmed. "There's a risk of brain damage."

"You work in the diagnostics department, Allison, so you _know_ we have a better chance of getting a diagnosis if we're working with a baby, not a fetus."

"This means you want to deliver."

"Tomorrow morning. We'll immediately put her on a respirator."

Cameron lay back in her bed and stared up at the ceiling, not able to process the possibility of giving birth to a baby who wouldn't be able to breathe on her own.

Wilson came to see her late that afternoon. "Do you want me to call anyone?" he asked.

"I've already spoken to my parents."

"They're coming down?"

"I've asked them not to until I'm sure I have a healthy baby in my hands."

"Because," he hypothesized, "you hate it when people try to comfort you with words that don't really mean much."

Tears quickly covered the dark circles beneath her eyes. "I'm not due for seven weeks and she won't be able to breathe without a respirator," She looked to Wilson, her eyelids heavy. "What could cause hypoplastic lungs in a thirty-three week-old fetus?"

"I'm sorry, I wish I knew. I usually deal with neoplastic syndrome, and – I wish I could be of more help."

"Will you ask Foreman what he thinks?"

Wilson squeezed her hand. "Yes."

"Thank you."

As Wilson rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, he wondered if he should tell House about Cameron's scheduled C-section. House already knew about the hypoplastic lungs; after he'd found out that Cameron wouldn't be at work for a while, he'd stolen her file from obstetrics. Sarah had told both Cameron and Wilson about what happened, and they'd all agreed it would be best to put down a fake name and procedure for Cameron's caesarian in the OR schedule.

Baby Cameron's case – was she really going to call her Amber? – would be sent to diagnostics anyway if the NICU doctors couldn't immediately determine what was wrong. But maybe House needed to be there for the birth of his child.

Wilson imagined that Amber Volakis would have thought so. "No matter how much of an ass he is," she might have said, "_you_ don't have the right to keep him from his kid."

He would have argued that he was just protecting Cameron, and Amber would have shrugged and told him that it was his decision. "I can't tell you what to do," she'd have said, "but right now you're screwing with other people's lives almost as much as House does."

Cuddy was getting ready to leave for the day when Wilson caught her in her office. "Dr. Cameron is downstairs," he said. "I thought you'd like to know that she'll be on leave for quite a while."

"She's already filed her paperwork," Cuddy said.

"I thought you'd like to _know_," Wilson continued, clearing his throat, "that the steroids still aren't working and that Dr. Kishore is planning to deliver in the morning."

He walked away before Cuddy could respond.

Alone in bed that night, Wilson remembered how Amber Volakis had refused to die angry.


	20. Guest

An obstetrician, two NICU doctors, one anesthesiologist, three nurses, and one uninvited guest walked together to an operating room where Cameron and a nurse-anesthetist were waiting.

"Remember," one of the NICU doctors told the team, "we need to get the baby on that respirator _immediately_ or we risk brain damage."

"I'll yell 'go!' the second I begin to lift her out of the uterus," Sarah said. Just before they entered the OR, she turned around to the uninvited guest who, despite his scrubs and surgical mask, was easily recognizable by the limp that had forced him to cling to the wall as he'd headed down the hallway. "Dr. House, you need to leave."

"You need a good diagnostician."

"If we don't immediately spot the problem, I'll call Dr. Foreman."

"I said you need a _good_ diagnostician."

"We don't have time for this," the anesthesiologist said. "With her low BP I can't keep her sedated for more than half an hour."

"If you don't leave," Sarah threatened, "security's taking care of this for me."

"No need." The Dean of Medicine had been observing from the far corner of the hallway. "Dr. Kishore, will you come here for a moment?"

Sarah shuffled her way over to Cuddy. "I don't have time for interpersonal problems. I have a patient."

"You can have two fewer students next semester and my permission to stab him in the eye with a scalpel if he causes any trouble in there."

"This is completely ridiculous." Sarah threw up her arms and went back to the spot where House was standing. "Dr. House, you can come in because one of my bosses says I have to let you in. Just know that if Allison goes into a dangerous arrhythmia, I have no ethical qualms about killing you."

House nodded and followed Sarah into the OR.

Cameron stared glassy-eyed at her doctors and nurses. She was lightly sedated but feeling almost no pain.

She heard Sarah's voice behind the curtain that was keeping her separated from her lower half. Sarah was saying something about a laparatomy, and Cameron recognized, through her haze, the two NICU doctors she'd spoken with the night before. Four nurses, one anesthesiologist, and one man who was obviously Greg House.

He stood closer to Sarah than to Cameron. "The uterus is intact," Sarah said, and the room went blurry. When she was able to see a bit more clearly again, House was standing over her, his blue eyes staring out above the surgical mask.

"House?" she asked, just barely able to feel the tears that were stinging her retinas.

"Stay calm. Dr. Kishore is stitching you up."

"The baby didn't cry."

"You knew she wouldn't be able to take a breath on her own. But she's already on the respirator."

"How – how many seconds between the time when –"

"_Stay calm_," House said, his voice ringing with frustration. "If your heart goes haywire, Dr. Kishore's going to stab me in the eye with a scalpel."

She realized he was holding one of her hands in both of his, rubbing her palm with his latex gloves.

"Heart rate's normal," a nurse said. "BP is 85 over 55, occasional extra heartbeat, normal sinus rhythm."

"BP's low," Cameron heard Sarah say, "but the patient's not at risk of a dangerous arrhythmia right now. Let's get her to recovery."

"Good," Cameron said, drifting off, "House can keep his eye." She squeezed his hand tightly.


	21. When Nothing Could Be Done

"One-day-old infant, born seven weeks premature to a thirty year old woman with a history of light bleeding early in the pregnancy, low BP and occasional extra heartbeats, and a father with a history of opioid abuse. The infant's lungs are hypoplastic and have not developed at all since the end of the second trimester."

Kutner opened his mouth to make a suggestion, but House interrupted before he could get a word out. "Mother was given three courses of glucocorticoids."

"Then it has to be genetic," Foreman said. "Congenital hernia."

House smashed the tip of his cane hard into the carpet. "_What else_?" he demanded.

"The hypoplasia and nonresponse to steroids mean …"

"I know what it _means_," House said, obviously distressed.

"House." Foreman stood so that he could address him directly. "We have to take her off the respirator and get a picture of her lungs to confirm the diagnosis. Maybe we're wrong, and maybe it's a repairable hernia. Either way, we need to look at her lungs."

House closed his eyes and nodded. "Tell the neonatologists, and make sure they get Dr. Cameron's permission to take the patient off the respirator."

Cameron, understanding her options, agreed to the procedure. The baby didn't crash when they imaged her lungs, so brain damage was unlikely. Unfortunately, however, Foreman's diagnosis was confirmed: Cameron's day-old daughter was born with a genetic congenital pulmonary hernia. Her lungs would never grow; on the respirator, she might live another three months at most.

House wondered if he was responsible for the genetic defect.

That night, he had his team stay in the boardroom making calls to every doctor in the United States and Canada who had ever written a paper on pulmonary hernia. Early the next morning, he had them move on to the rest of the world.

He was searching for open clinical studies on his computer at his left while paging through a medical reference with his right hand when Wilson opened the door to his office.

"House?"

House looked up, stopping his work for the first time in hours.

"My God," Wilson said, "you're multitasking."

"There has to be a way around this. Something experimental."

"Allison's been making calls too." He stood over House's desk. "You haven't slept in the last thirty-six hours?"

"Forty-eight," he corrected.

Wilson, too, looked like he hadn't slept or even gone home in two days. "They want to discharge Allison tonight. You should go see her."

"I'm the last person she needs to see."

"You know genetics is –"

"Why are you here?"

"Because," Wilson said, "I was wrong and I want to fix it."

"You would not have said that if Cameron had a healthy baby when she was supposed to in February."

Wilson sat in House's chaise, raised a knee, and covered his eyes with his right hand. "I should have dealt with you, not her. I should have warned _you_ that you'd only disappoint her and the baby. I had no right to tell _her_ to stay away."

"You're still a pushover, Jimmy. I accidentally killed your girlfriend, and –"

"You didn't 'kill' her, House."

"I accidentally got your girlfriend killed, and you're sitting here apologizing like an idiot. Of course you had a right to do what you did."

"Go see her," Wilson said.

"I can do a lot more here than I can there."

"I only have morning appointments today – I was supposed to be in surgery this afternoon but we had to cancel. Go see her, and I'll spend the whole night doing research for you. You don't know how much more you can do if you're with her."


	22. Possibilities for Escape

Cameron stared down at the child encased in glass, wishing her prognosis away.

In the summer, it would be over. She'd leave PPTH and open up an allergy clinic somewhere in the Great Plains, where she'd prescribe Nasonex and teach herself to stop emotionally investing in the wounded.

Sarah joined Cameron by Amber's incubator.

"You're all set to be discharged," Sarah said. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Sure," Cameron answered, not wanting to admit that she couldn't deal with the crib and baby gifts in her apartment.

"Someone should stay with you tonight. You may be in a lot of pain." Sarah handed her two sheets from her prescription pad. "Percocet for the pain and Zantac for the acid reflux. Do you want something to help you sleep?"

"A Percocet will knock me out just fine."

"Go home," Sarah said. "See if your parents, or somebody, can come out and stay with you while you're recovering. You need to be off your feet and sleeping for the next few days. If you can't find anyone, I'll cancel my appointments and stay with you tonight and tomorrow."

"I don't want my parents driving down I-80 in the dark. I'll call if I need you, okay?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more."

"You … there was nothing … it's genetic. She'd have been born with it no matter what."

"But I could have looked for an excess of amniotic fluid, and then we could have done amniocentesis in the fourth month, and –"

"You're a Mayo Clinic-trained obstetrician," House interrupted. He was standing in the NICU doorway. "You _know_ excess amniotic fluid is not a reliable indicator of genetic illness."

"Right." Sarah patted Cameron's arm. "Call me if you need me to come over tonight."

Until Sarah was gone, House stared at Cameron, his head facing the ground, blue eyes peering upward.

"You're obviously freaked out about going back to your place, and someone needs to stay with you, so come home with me tonight."

"House, I …"

"I'm her father," he said, signaling towards Amber's incubator but still avoiding looking directly at the infant. "You might as well call me Greg at this point."

"We must have made a hundred calls."

"So did we."

"Sarah spoke to all the neonatologists in Minneapolis. I even had Chase try Penn for me. But, like you taught me," she said, "sometimes diagnosis is the end of the line. I ... I don't want to accept that right now, but --"

"She's my kid." For the first time, House bent over and peered into the incubator. "And I'm supposed to be the best. I can't let her die."

"You're the best diagnostician out there," Cameron said. "You're so good at diagnosing Wegener's that it's had to figure out new ways to hide from you. But this –"

"You can't be alone tonight. Either come home with me or I'm having obstetrics find you another bed."

She agreed to go with him, even though it would have been easier to just ask Sarah to stay with her.


	23. Pain

When they arrived back at House's place, Cameron took a Percocet and carefully changed into the oversized nightshirt she'd brought from her apartment. Her stitches pulled at her skin as she lay down on House's bed and covered herself with a comforter that smelled like him. Minutes later, she fell asleep.

She woke up four hours later (the clock read 2:48) with her heart racing, maybe the result of a bad dream she didn't remember. A sharp pain ripped through the incision on her stomach and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out. She reached for the prescription bottle and glass of water beside the bed.

Realizing that she'd need the Zantac she'd left in the living room – the stabbing sensation in her right breast was obviously the result of post-op acid reflux – she slowly rose and shuffled into the living room, where House was stretched out on the couch.

He sat up suddenly when she swallowed a Zantac. "Are you in pain?" he asked, examining her face in the dark.

"I just took another Percocet."

He pulled back the blanket that was covering him. Standing, he linked arms with her. "C'mon," he said, "I'll help you."

"Try not to fall," she said drowsily, noticing how he dragged his leg when he wasn't using his cane.

He walked her to the bedroom and didn't take his eyes off her until she was lying down. "You're very attentive when you're interested," she commented.

"You shouldn't have to go through this," he said.

She patted the right side of the bed. "Stay here." She was already half-asleep. "I don't want to wake up alone again."

He complied, and they faced each other.

"House," Cameron said, "tell me something. The last time I was here, did you want me to stay?"

"You stayed the night."

"You wanted me to _stay_, didn't you? I was here because I needed to get my mind off of Chase, but you thought I still _loved_ you."

Strangely, tenderly, he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "Doesn't matter," was all he said.

"I'm going away after this summer."

"Where?"

"Some big rectangular state in the middle of the country where I can open up an allergy clinic."

House reached over and lay a hand on Cameron's lower back. "When your husband died, did you also talk about packing up and leaving?"

"No."

"You're lying. Don't run away because you're grieving."

"I have every right to run away."

"What I'm about to tell you never leaves the room," he said.

"What?"

"The first time I woke up after my seizure, I saw Wilson standing in the doorway. He looked at me, looked at the ground, and walked away. I didn't want to have to live knowing I deserved to be hated. So I closed my eyes and hoped after that I'd be free from pain and free from consciousness. Every time I woke up again, I was disappointed. Then you leaned over me that one day with your vomit-breath and I thought I might be able to live with myself."

"You mean you focused your attention on another person and it saved your life?"

"Right." His voice cracked slightly. "But I failed you anyway."

"This isn't failure," Cameron said. "This is genetics. It can't be failure … I just wish you had told me earlier about what you were thinking after your seizure."

"Morals, morals," he whispered, kissing her forehead before she fell asleep.


	24. Hope

Cameron woke up the next morning to the sound of her cell phone buzzing against the hard surface of the bedside table. She reached over and flipped the phone open.

"Yes?"

"Good morning." It was Wilson. "I have … news."

Despite her soreness, she sat up quickly in bed, momentarily glancing at the diagnostician sleeping soundly next to her, wondering for half a second if he might have been lying when he suggested that her presence in his hospital room on that day six months earlier had saved his life. "News," Cameron repeated.

"It's not necessarily promising, but it's a possibility. There is a pediatric oncologist in Austin, Texas who mistakenly operated on a six-week old infant who had been diagnosed with genetic congenital pulmonary hernia."

"I don't understand," Cameron said. "That's at least four malpractice suits, I'd think."

"The original diagnosis was neoplastic syndrome due to a cancerous tumor. After a second MRI, they corrected the diagnosis to irreparable pulmonary hernia. The oncologist insisted he was right, though, and somehow got permission to operate anyway and removed some of the tissue from the interior of the infant's lungs. After removing the herniated tissue, the lungs began to develop normally and thanks to this guy's mistake, there's a couple in Texas with a healthy four-year-old boy right now."

"That doesn't sound right."

"I know. The second diagnosis must have also been wrong. The baby in this case had a repairable hernia."

House began to toss and turn. "What's going on?" he groaned.

"Wilson's telling me about the worst neonatologists in the history of medicine."

"No, no, no," Wilson said frantically. "I mean, the oncologist who operated was absolutely wrong. But I spoke to our neonatology team, and they have an idea."

"Hold on." Cameron pressed the speakerphone button and laid her phone on top of the comforter. "Go."

"They could try doing what the Idiot Oncologist did and remove tissue from her lungs."

"From her lungs that don't have enough tissue?" House asked. He was still lying on his back with his eyes closed.

"The doctors in Austin got _really_ lucky," Wilson explained. "We were thinking that if this happens to be a very rare case of nongenetic hernia that can't be distinguished from the genetic form –"

"_Our_ doctors can tell the difference," House said.

"House, _just listen_. If for whatever reason the source of the hernia is deep in the lungs, we couldn't have seen it on the MRI."

Cameron's eyes widened. "So you're saying there's a chance that Amber's lungs are _lying_ to us about why they're herniated?"

"A very small chance, I want you to be aware of that," Wilson said. "The neonatologists told me it's something like one-eighth of a percent."

House finally sat up. He rubbed his leg and for a second Cameron wondered what it must have been like to wake up in pain every morning. "You want us to risk this surgery because there's a one-eighth-of-one-percent chance that she doesn't have what her MRI told us she has."

"And because there's a one hundred percent chance she'll die of respiratory failure without the surgery," Wilson said. "But we want you to know you've got the approval of the Dean of Medicine on this procedure."

House clapped his hands. "Cuddy's approval! It must be Christmas."

"Thank you, James," Cameron said into the phone. "We'll make a decision by this afternoon. I'll head back to the hospital once I'm out of the shower."

She turned off the phone. "You shouldn't take more Percocet on an empty stomach," House said, somewhat ironically reaching for his Vicodin. "I'll get bagels. You wait for me before you get in the shower."

Cameron raised an eyebrow.

"I mean in case you fall."

She was genuinely surprised at the thoughtfulness House was capable of, but knew he was only thoughtful when he wanted to be, which wasn't enough to convince her not to move to North Dakota.

Now, he stood while she sat on the bed. "What do you think?" she asked.

"My name's not on the birth certificate. It's up to you."

"What would you tell me if you were her doctor, not her father, and I was a receptionist from Trenton?"

"I'd say it makes no sense not to sign off on the surgery. I'd say, 'your kid's going to die in three months anyway, so you're not taking a risk here.' Then even if you didn't give permission, I'd find a way to operate anyway, because the receptionist from Trenton obviously doesn't understand how probability works. And the baby would be my patient, so I'd have to save her."


	25. Wilson ex Machina

Two days later, Wilson found Cameron sleeping in the chaise in House's office while House observed baby Amber's surgery downstairs. Cameron woke up, startled when Wilson opened the door.

"I couldn't watch," she explained. "I can't deal with false hope."

"And you're taking a lot of Percocet, I heard." He sat at the edge of the chair. "They shouldn't have discharged you so early."

"Sarah had to make a large hysterotomy. There was no other way to get Amber straight from womb to respirator. I'm okay. It's painful, but it's healing."

"They've checked for infection?"

"Yes, and I'm clear." She sat up slowly and patted his shoulder. "Thank you so much for getting me through this pregnancy. And thank you for giving my daughter an eighth of a percent of a chance that she didn't have before."

Wilson looked up at the ceiling. "You've been staying with him?"

"Yes, but once this is –"

"You don't have to explain."

"For myself, I –"

"He loves you," Wilson interrupted. "I have not seen this side of him since Stacy. Sarah Kishore came to my office yesterday to tell me that House had stopped her in the cafeteria to ask why you were in so much pain, and what could be done about it. The poor woman thought she had a brain tumor that was causing her to hallucinate a genuinely concerned House."

"You know," she said, "I _cannot_ take another heartbreak."

"He can't take another heartbreak either."

"Do you know what it's like to feel that if _one more thing happens_, you'll never recover?"

His mouth opened slightly and his lazy eye turned in towards his nose. "Yes, actually."

"For the first time in my life, I'm choosing to preserve myself rather than save someone else."

"House would say, 'eww, profundity.'" Wilson squeezed Cameron's hand. "An eighth of a percent," he said, and it was almost like praying.

House walked in, throwing the door open with his left hand, lifting his cane with his right. "Don't look hopeful," he said, "because we are nowhere near out of the water yet. But they just removed a mass of herniated tissue from the interior of Amber's right lung."

His tongue tripped when he pronounced his daughter's name.

Cameron gasped and sat up straighter. "It wasn't genetic."

"We never would have known otherwise." It was his way of thanking Wilson. "But like I said, we're not out of the water. If they're successful with lung number two, she has an eighty percent chance of survival."

Tears ran down Cameron's face as she wrapped her arms around Wilson, who still sat at the edge of the chaise. "You were right," she told him, practically gasping in gratitude.

"This could be … we can apply for funding here at PPTH to run trials," Wilson said. "There'll be a new protocol – new diagnostic criteria – for genetic congenital pulmonary hernia, thanks to your daughter." He paused to survey House and Cameron. "I think … I'm going to talk to Cuddy, if that's all right with the two of you."

"Go on, boy," House teased, pointing his cane at the door.

Once Wilson left, Cameron stood and slid her hands around House's waist, resting her head on his chest. "Are you going to watch the left lung?" she asked.

"They're probably halfway done already."

She was surprised that he was choosing her over a _really_ interesting operation, though not entirely shocked that he was hugging her back, wanting to make it better for her. "As a doctor," he said, "you are thinking that eighty percent isn't as good as it might sound to your average parent. You understand what it means that one in every five babies in Amber's condition will not survive."

"I'm not thinking that, because it's too hard to imagine right now. I'm acting like an average parent and denying that possibility. It's better that way."

"She could be responsible for a new diagnostic protocol, like Wilson said. We shouldn't expect any less."

"Not from our daughter," she said with a slight smile.

"Let me be a part of her life," he begged, "not that I deserve it."


	26. Calendar

Amber Cameron was delivered by caesarian section on a Wednesday in December. On Thursday, she was diagnosed with genetic congenital pulmonary hernia. That Monday, a team of neonatologists operated and learned that Amber's lungs had lied; her chance of survival increased from zero percent to one-eighth of a percent to eighty percent in a matter of hours.

Until Christmas, Cameron spent every day in the NICU and every night at House's apartment; she couldn't stand to look at the empty crib knowing that there was only an eighty percent chance that her daughter would ever sleep there.

On Christmas Eve, Cameron went back to her apartment because her parents were coming to visit on the 25th. She didn't invite House to have dinner with them.

She spent the night of the 24th with House, Wilson, and Sarah, the three guests she thought most appropriate for her first day back in her apartment. Wilson cooked. (He insisted.) House made fourteen cracks about Cameron's non-Christian Christmas Eve guests. (Cameron counted.) Wilson talked excitedly about the presentation he and the neonatal surgeons would make to the Board of Directors after the start of the new year, and Sarah offered advice.

Despite the twenty percent hanging over Cameron's head, life seemed strangely normal, perhaps more normal than it had been since the day she'd first interviewed at PPTH, almost five years earlier.

House stayed after Wilson and Sarah left. ("A hundred bucks says those two go home _together_," House said, and Cameron smacked his arm but was nevertheless unwilling to bet against the possibility.) He took it upon himself to lay down in her bed while she showered. Exhausted – and worried – she stretched out across him, resting her head on his chest.

"You're making promises you can't keep, Cam – Allison," he said, squirming a bit beneath her.

"Sorry." She laughed and moved her legs so that she now lay beside him. Her head was still on his chest. "You want to stay for dinner tomorrow?"

"Maybe," he answered.

She'd already known he wouldn't be willing to invest that much in family life.

"So, no," she said.

"Probably not. I'll consider it, though."

"Mmm, that's okay." She sleepily slid a hand down to his bare right leg and started to knead the mottled skin and absent muscle.

He caught her by the wrist and held her arm above both of their heads. "Nope," he snapped. "Stop thinking you can _heal_ me. You never will. Accept it."

"I do," she said, sitting up. "You're going to be dependent on Vicodin for the rest of your life. All I ask is that you use only pills prescribed to you, you keep them on a high shelf when the baby's around, and you don't act like a drug addict."

Silently, he examined her face. "That's _all_ you ask?"

"I know it's all I'm ever going to get."

"Have you learned nothing from working for me? Every once in a while, ask for _more_. Ask for too much. I won't listen to you, but if you really want _me_ as your kid's father, you have to be tougher and a lot more demanding."

On December 27th, the NICU doctors told Cameron that her baby's lungs were developing normally. She'd be off the respirator and breathing on her own by the middle of January, which meant that by February, she'd be sleeping in the crib in Cameron's apartment.


	27. Possibilities for Change

After the New Year (which she celebrated quietly with House in his apartment), Cameron returned to work so that she'd be able to take another month off when she brought Amber home in – she hoped – early February. The same week, she interviewed with PPTH's immunology department and board of directors and learned that she'd start her new position as immunology attending in May. Sarah recommended a (rather pricey) nanny service for infants with special needs – Amber would be severely asthmatic at least through early childhood – and Cameron's life in Princeton was set in place, except that she still didn't know exactly where she and her daughter stood in relation to House.

At the moment it didn't matter because Amber was alive and, as of January 20th, breathing on her own.

And besides, it was better not knowing whether (or when) House would break their hearts, she told herself.

Wilson made time to visit his goddaughter in the special care nursery every day.

One day, shortly after Amber had been successfully taken off the respirator, Wilson encountered House cradling his infant daughter near her hospital crib.

"She's going home in ten days," House told Wilson. "By next year she'll be able to say" – here he switched to a high-pitched child's voice – "I'm responsible for a new set of diagnostic criteria for congenital pulmonary hernia."

"House."

"You have to admit it's cool."

"Does Allison know you're here?"

"She's colonized part of my apartment. I don't think I need to ask her for permission to see our kid."

"She's moved herself in?" Wilson asked, not quite sure whether he should laugh.

"Not exactly," House said, setting Amber back in her crib. "She's there four or five nights a week."

"I'm sure once the baby comes home …"

"You and I, we need to go to Atlantic City one night, catch up, you know."

"Right, but you have _her_ now" – he signaled to the crib – "and can't just gamble the night away at will."

House leaned over and looked at his daughter. "You want to go to Atlantic City?" he asked her, and Wilson chuckled.

"Listen," he continued, "you have to do something for me."

"Find you a getaway car?' Wilson asked.

"Just the opposite. I need you to make sure I don't leave." He pointed at Amber and twisted his face into a smirk. "She's kind of important."

"I can't do that."

"When she's a few months old and wheezing incessantly, I'll lose interest. I know how I work."

"Then _change_," Wilson suggested.

"I'm only concerned when I'm interested. You told Allison that a thousand times, didn't you?"

"_Change_," he repeated.

"I have no right to ask you for anything considering that I killed your girlfriend, but –"

"You didn't kill my girlfriend, you ass."

"But do this for Allison and the baby."

"House." Wilson made a fist with his right hand. "Look at what you're doing. You're making _me_ responsible for Allison and the baby. You're shifting the burden to _me_, so if you give up, it's _my fault_. The burden of commitment needs to be on you."

"What can I say? Shifting responsibility away from myself is my third biggest talent."

Wilson offered him a confused look.

"One is diagnosing rare conditions," House explained, smiling.

"Change," Wilson said one more time. "Commit."

Wilson walked away knowing he'd look out for House and his new family anyway. He'd accept that burden any day, even though House would never have been supportive of him if he and Amber Volakis had started a family.

_I hope you'll be okay with this_, Wilson thought, not sure where his words were going.

During the next few months, House stayed with Cameron and their daughter almost every weeknight but kept his apartment, where he'd spend weekends with bourbon, medical journals, and soft-core Showtime porn. At Cameron's place, he kept his Vicodin on a high shelf in the kitchen; he'd always sit with his daughter in his lap while Cameron administered medication to Amber's lungs via a face mask and nebulizer.

He quit hookers and strip clubs and began (every once in a rare while) sleeping with Cameron and only Cameron. Still, every day involved at least six Vicodin and one bourbon.

As the weeks passed and House saw that his little girl was breathing better and starting to look more like him every day, Wilson's words rang in his ears: "Change. Commit."

_Change, commit_. For the first time in over a decade he recognized the possibility.


	28. Adjust

What happens next is commitment, not change, because House is right and Cameron knows it: people don't change, even after they accidentally produce a child with sandy brown hair and bright blue eyes, even after they almost lose their hearts when they almost lose that child. People don't change; they adjust, maybe.

At nine o'clock one evening near the end of June, Cameron opens the door to her apartment expecting to find the nanny watching TV with the sound off while Baby Amber sleeps. Instead, she encounters House (who still doesn't live there, not really, not officially) sitting on the sofa with his left arm wrapped around Amber, his right hand gently holding a nebulizer mask steady on her face. The nebulizer itself and House's right leg rest on Cameron's coffee table.

"Hey," she says, dropping her overstuffed purse on the floor and sitting beside House and their daughter.

"Hey hey," is his response.

"I thought you were at the hospital."

"Taub and Kutner are handling the case. Fifty bucks says it's lupus." He smiles faintly and offers her a wink. "I figured she wouldn't sleep if she had to inhale all this crap too late at night."

"Thank you … I got stuck with two positive ANAs tonight, and even though in my new job it usually _is_ lupus … Amber hasn't been wheezing, has she?"

"No," he says, removing the mask from her face and passing her to her mother. "We didn't need the Albuterol tonight. She's been good. We had a long talk."

"You and our seven-month-old?"

"The kid says that she's tired of perusing Mom's somewhat lame collection of medical journals and books and would be much more intellectually stimulated if Mom merged her collection with Dad's far more awesome one. Also, she wants a new Dobro."

"At this rate, she'll graduate from med school before her second birthday." But Cameron knows what he's suggesting: he wants for them to but a house, or at least a bigger apartment, together.

She won't acknowledge it because only fifteen months earlier she'd been looking at houses with Chase.

House looks into his daughter's eyes and gives her a mock handshake, using one of his fingers to move her tiny hand up and down. "Good talk tonight. You're right about the three of us and all our stuff living together as long as you promise not to chew on my guitars."

"Greg, she's not a puppy."

"You might also be right," he says, continuing to address Amber, "about wanting to be the only kid in kindergarten whose parents are married to each other."

"I'm … going to put her to bed," Cameron says, struggling to conceal her surprise.

Though she's seen him devote more and more of himself to Amber in recent weeks, part of Cameron still won't trust House to commit.

"Amber said something interesting to me before," House says when Cameron returns to the living room.

"She's sure talkative for a seven-month-old who can't talk."

"She said people don't change."

"Really? I can name at least four."

"According to Amber, Mom's wombat of an ex-fiancé would have left her anyway. She was lucky it didn't happen after the wedding. He didn't change. _Leaving_ isn't changing."

Before Cameron can come up with a response, House jumps in again. "Dad, meanwhile, is much more awesome," he says, "because even though he's an ass, he would _always_ have stuck by anyone willing to unconditionally stick by him."

"Which is, ultimately, narcissistic," Cameron tells him.

"Narcissism is a conscious need to drag everyone who loves you down with you. I drag, but not consciously."

"Don't be so clinical," she says.

"At least Doc Wombat didn't tell surgeons to remove a piece of your leg while you were in a coma."

"Oh." Cameron's voice trembles a bit. She knows he's just playing the 'my ex had a piece of my leg cut out' card, but she wants to rest her hand where it happened, maybe hold him for a minute.

"See?" House says. "You are fighting the overwhelming need to take care of me that you've _always_ had."

She retracts her hand further as if to prevent herself from reaching out.

"When we were in the hospital with Amber," House continues, "Wilson told me I had to change and commit. I'm not going to change for you and wind up resenting you and I'm not going to let you change for me and resent me. Wilson of all people should know that change leads to resentment."

Now she lets herself lean over and massage his right leg through his jeans. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Not changing."

"Good," he says, even though he's visibly uncomfortable. "Live with me."

"Okay," Cameron answers.

"Marry me," he suggests. "I won't leave." It's the most unassuming promise that anyone has ever made to her.

She says yes to that too, even though she's unsure (and certain he's aware of that). Though she loves him now for reasons different from the reasons she had for loving him three years ago, she has not changed. She wants to make it better for him.

People don't change.

They adjust.


End file.
